


What Tony Knew

by justbygrace



Series: Pete's World [15]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Growing Up, Pete's World, Tony's POV, outside pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2019-03-15 04:24:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13605468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justbygrace/pseuds/justbygrace
Summary: I was listening to Sofi Tukker's 'Best Friend' this morning and somehow it put me into mind of a Tentoo/Rose story from Tony Tyler's POV so here it is!





	What Tony Knew

When Tony was five the Doctor appeared in his life. He didn't remember much of the first five years of his life, but he remembered how his big sister Rose would cry a lot and he would try to cuddle in her lap and share his biscuits in an attempt to make her feel better. He definitely remembered when Rose disappeared for a while and his mum left for a weekend and when they returned there was a strange man with them. He was called the Doctor and he played legos better than anyone else except for Tony's very best friend Parker and even then it was kind of a tie. Tony'd been scared of him at first - this strange new man who was rarely far from his sister's side, but the Doctor's energy and propensity for setting things on fire and finding the very best biscuits in the house soon endeared him to Tony's heart. And anyway, Rose didn't cry anymore with the Doctor around.

When Tony was ten, he considered the Doctor to be his best friend (Parker had moved way back when he was seven). Tony spent almost as much time with Rose and the Doctor as he did at his own house and he much preferred it at their flat; it was comfortable and sometimes the appliances talked to him and the Doctor was always teaching him how to run experiments and teaching him the proper _Scientific_ name for the chemicals. If Rose was home she'd help out too, reminding them both to wear goggles "cause I'm not losing you" which Tony found odd cause he wasn't going anywhere and neither was the Doctor - he'd promised like four years ago when Rose had worn white and Tony got to carry the rings in a metal contraption that made his mum shriek when he opened it. Sometimes Rose and the Doctor went away for trips to other countries but they promised to always come back and they always sent cool toys and sweets for him from faraway places so it wasn't all bad. Tony knew the history of his family and he also knew it wasn't a good idea to talk about it at school because otherwise his mum got called in and then she'd make Rose and the Doctor come get him and have to drink tea for awhile before she felt better. Sometimes Rose and his mum would cry afterwards and talk about "second chances", but the Doctor and Tony could always cheer them up by doing another experiment - they always stopped crying right away anyway, even if sometimes they yelled.

When Tony was fifteen he would sneak out of his house when his parents were being particularly unreasonable and take a bus across town to Rose and the Doctor's house. He knew Rose would always call his parents and tell them, but he didn't care because he always got to stay there for a couple days anyway and breathe. He loved his parents, he did, but his mum was very overprotective and his dad would talk about alien threats like he expected Tony to be abducted on his way to school and it all just got very overwhelming. One night Rose sat him down and told him what she'd done at his age and it explained a little bit about his mum, but Jackie still drove him crazy and he much preferred to help the Doctor with whatever experiment he was working on. The Doctor always had good stories to tell while they worked that took Tony's mind off his problems. Sometimes Tony had trouble believing all the stories were true, but there was something in the Doctor's tone that made it true, especially when he talked about Daleks and Cybermen. As Tony struggled with talking to girls and sometimes boys and most of the time just in general, the Doctor was always there to listen and give advice (most of which involved going and asking Rose what she thought) and recruit him to help blow stuff up in the back garden. Sometimes Tony would stare at Rose and the Doctor after such explosions and get an ache in his chest that made him want to run and maybe cry and preferably punch something or maybe blow something else up.

When Tony was twenty the girl he'd been planning to propose to broke up with him. He showed up at the Doctor and Rose's house, tears running down his face and a deep desire Not To Talk About It. They didn't force it (which was quite opposite to Jackie's reaction), instead they had his favorite biscuits and then all three of them went out to the Doctor's lab and recreated some of their favorite explosions in the shatterproof testing facility the Doctor had installed after the Marzipan Incident (TM) which no one was allowed to talk about ever again. Afterwards they listened while Tony poured out the whole story and nodded and they didn't give him any advice, but the look on their faces said they understood his pain on a level none of his mates did. They offered to take him with them on their next European Adventure and he didn't hesitate. And somewhere between the museums, the art galleries, holding orphans they'd decided to volunteer playing with, and being accidentally swept up in a coup that ended a great deal less bloodily than anticipated, somewhere in all that chaos watching Rose and the Doctor run hand-in-hand Tony began to realize exactly what love was.

When Tony was twenty-five he stood at the front of an aisle while the Most Beautiful Woman In The World walked towards him. It had been a journey to get there - they'd met on one of his annual trips with Rose and the Doctor; she'd pitched in and helped when they found themselves doing hurricane relief and when he saw her sometimes he forgot how to breathe. He hadn't known how to talk to her - the Doctor wasn't a huge help, but Rose was and she coached him through the finer points of courtship and dating and first dates and second dates and had definitely helped him plan the proposal (even though he'd scrapped it in the end because the two of them had been helping during a severe earthquake and the building had collapsed and he wasn't certain they'd make it out and it seemed a good time to ask and she'd kissed him soundly and he'd had to double-check that was a yes - when he told the story to Rose, she'd kissed his cheek with tears in her eyes and gone hurriedly off to find the Doctor). Standing there at the front of the aisle, Tony didn't know what he'd done to deserve this much happiness and when he leaned over to whisper this to the Doctor he was not surprised to see tears form in the older man's eyes. Tony watched as the Doctor looked across the room at Rose and something in his heart turned over as he recognized that maybe, just maybe, he'd get a chance at the happiness that he'd been watching for the last twenty years of his life.


End file.
